Legal marijuana sales begin in Washington, 2nd state to allow pot without prescription

Marijuana dispensaries in Washington state began legally selling recreational weed on Tuesday morning, joining Colorado by officially becoming the second state in the country where adults can lawfully purchase pot.

Customers formed lines outside retailers in the Evergreen State
early Tuesday as select shops prepared to open their doors for
the first time ever.

On Monday, state officials handed out licenses to 25 proprietors,
clearing the way for recipients to begin selling weed 24 hours
later. Early Tuesday, local media outlets were showing that some
prospective buyers had begun lining up outside of dispensaries
with the intention of being among the first Washingtonians to
legally buy marijuana.

Although federal officials still consider pot to be a Schedule 1
narcotic, residents in Colorado and Washington voted in November
2012 to relax the national prohibition within state borders and
allow adults without prescriptions to purchase pot from
state-regulated dealers. Colorado shops officially began selling
on January 1. Meanwhile, nearly half of the United States
currently has provisions in place allowing for medicinal
marijuana to be lawfully dispensed.

In Bellingham, WA, Kansas resident Cale Holdsworth was the first
person to line up outside of Top Shelf Cannabis early Tuesday, a
local FOX affiliate reported.

“We support the cause and we thought it would be great to
come down and experience history first hand and just be a part of
it and support. Not only that but you can’t really travel with
the stuff being that it’s only legal in a few states so we just
don’t have any with us,” Holdsworth told Q13 FOX.

Cale Holdsworth the first to purchase marijuana at Top Shelf
Cannabis. He says "I'm absolutely thrilled" pic.twitter.com/xBgHGV5BNM

Adults in Washington state — including visitors like Holdsworth —
can legally purchase up to an ounce of dried marijuana, 16 ounces
of pot-infused solids, 72 ounces of pot-infused liquids, or seven
grams of concentrated marijuana under the new law.

However, as RT reported previously, only a limited number of
growers and dispensaries have so far received their licenses from
the state, setting the stage for expected long waits and
shortages across Washington.